Staying In Touch

The long summer break in an international school means that it can be a challenge for staff to stay in touch with each other.

In our absence there have clearly been issues back at Kellett with the web site and the e-mail system. I understand these are being tackled and the system will be up and running within the next few days.

For all those who have been looking for the Kellett site and been redirected to this blog via search engines, I'd like to apologise for this situation and reiterate that it will be rectified as soon as possible.

Interestingly, it's at times like this when other, often derided forms of communication help out. During the past few days I have conversed with other staff on school matters via both Facebook and Twitter. Thank goodness for reliable old social networking...

If you need to contact me, please use the Kellett ICT Twitter feed (to the right of this post) or leave a message in the comments below.

Thanks

MrD

Another Great Application

I'm pretty sure it was Lee Kolbert who first pointed out what a great web site Today's Meet is. Originally designed to run as a back channel during conference presentations, this excellent tool offers a time limited, Twitter style communication platform that could be used by classroom teachers.

Last week I asked our teachers to use Todays Meet to think of ways that it could be utilised to help teaching and learning.

This is what they came up with;

• If you are watching video footage as a stimulus, children can enter their first responses as they watch the footage, note taking on a forum basis
• I can see this being used as a homework tool. Set a problem to be solved and the children respond and can see all other responses
• I'm wondering if this can be used across a year group so all three classes could see peers comments on a common topic e.g. Cross class collaboration
• This would be great for evaluating artists' work. All children can respond to the art work at the same time as well as responding to each other
• It could provide a platform for older pupils to have discussions for group homework. Providing an open "room" for ideas to be easily shared.
• Students could post arguments for science ethics topics, either for or against and then discuss in class
• Students can make a brief comment on a text I have set them for homework!
• It would be amazing as a homework tool for our Big Talk Topics - children can post comments about the topic as well as the 'dinner talk'
• Real time peer assessment of presentations.

These are just a few ideas complied over a rushed Friday - there's clearly lots of scope for using this tool and we'll be trying out some different ways in the coming weeks. If anybody is using this in an educational context, please let us know!

What's Going On in ICT??

Dear Parents, and other interested parties!

Ever feel the need to find out what we're doing in ICT?!

It's always a bit of an eye opener when I talk to parents and show them the work we're doing in ICT and they say something like; "I never realised you did that sort of thing."

The ICT curriculum has come a long way in a short amount of time and as I've said before, if you think it's changing fast now, just wait and see what happens next! Keeping up with current developments is a real task for teachers, but it's important they do so if they are to successfully embed technology into what they do and provide students with challenges that are real and relevant.

One if the ways I keep in touch with developments is by using a Personal Learning Network (PLN)of colleagues, ex-colleagues, friends, leading thinkers in ed-tech etc as a basis for my ideas. Sometimes I read what they're up to via their blogs (using Google Reader), sometimes I'm in closer contact via forums or Nings, but more recently I've invested a bit of time in Twitter.

I've had a Twitter account for around about a year, but after my initial efforts at updating I sort of gave up on it. However, it has now begun to become a more widely used tool in education and in society itself. High profile users of Twitter include Lance Armstrong and Stephen Fry and their use has been highlighted in the media. Use of the software around important world events has also raised awareness.

Having revived my account I now find that more people I know and want to discuss my work with are using Twitter and that meaningful conversations are beginning to take place. I'm sure this will be a help to my own professional development and therefore impact upon the work of my students.

As well as my own account I have also set up a Kellett ICT Twitter account and will use this to update what's going on in our lessons (hopefully) on a day-to-day basis.

If you already have a Twitter account and would like to follow us, our account name is kellettict, or you can just click on the Follow me on Twitter link in the right hand side of this page.

If you would like to know more about Twitter, you can visit the web site, or see what Wikipedia has to say about it.

We look forward to you following us!!